How to Safely Pack Your Furniture for a Move

If you are like most people, the largest investment you have is in your furniture. When you are moving, you are going to want to take your time and pack each piece carefully. You want your furniture to arrive at your new home looking just as it did when you began, so taking the time to do things right will save you headaches later on.

Gather the materials. Begin by assembling packing materials such as shipping blankets, moving boxes, rolls of bubble wrap®, sturdy tape, sheets of corrugated cardboard and plastic baggies (for hardware). Also, be sure to have a sharpie pen to mark your labels.

Dust of your furniture. You will want to dust each piece of furniture before you begin to pack it. You don’t really want to unpack a dusty thing later, right? Also, don’t give in to the temptation to leave items in dresser drawers. This makes the dresser much heavier to move and can lead to it being dropped.

Disassemble your furniture. Begin by disassembling whatever you can: taking off the legs of a table and removing the shelves from a cabinet. If there are any screws or hardware involved, put them safely into a plastic bag, which you will later tape to the piece of furniture itself, or mark it clearly and put it into a box. Keep the legs together, perhaps wrapping them in bubble wrap® or a shipping blanket and taping them tightly together. Wrap each shelf in its own packing paper, bubble wrap® or shipping blanket and tape it shut as well. You can fill the inside of things like China cabinets with crumpled paper or packing material to help protect them as well.

Tip: Be careful of the type of tape you use directly on your furniture. Some types of tapes can harm the surface. You do want to tape doors and drawers shut however.

Protect sharp corners. If a piece has sharp corners or corners you want to protect, then you might try to cover each corner with some corrugated cardboard and then wrapping some bubble wrap® around the area, just to protect the corners.

Items like sofas and mattresses can be protected by buying plastic covers for the pieces before you wrap them in shipping blankets. You can also wrap them yourself by using shrink wrap or strong plastic sheets. You will want to keep these safe from stains and moisture.

Breakable pieces such as mirrors should be wrapped securely with sheets of corrugated cardboard boxes before you pack them with shipping blankets or bubble wrap® as an added layer of protection.

To save money, you can also use blankets, sheets, towels and curtains to wrap your furniture in.

As with any other aspect of packing for moving day, taking your time and doing things carefully can make the difference between a successful move and a disaster, so always leave yourself adequate time.